News : Can you help track down the missing Maestros?

Maestro@40 Event

The Maestro & Montego Owners Club is marking this year’s 40th birthday of the Austin and MG Maestro with its Maestro@40 celebrations at the British Motor Museum on 9 July. The club is hoping that it can track down dealer specials such as those from Auto Styling, Marshall’s and Henlys, pictured below and at the bottom of the page.

The special edition Austin Maestros (and sometimes MGs) were produced throughout the car’s production run by dealers keen to sell their cars and are now seen as being particularly interesting by the club.

Andrew Stokell, MMOC Event Committee member, said: ‘We need AROnline readers help to track down more information on some unusual Maestro offerings from the 1980s. As with many cars, third-party companies offered styling kits/modifications for the Maestro. We’d like to know if anyone worked for these companies and can tell us more about them. Maybe someone out there bought one and has photos?’

Henlys Maestro

Other event activities

The club is inviting any current or former Maestro owners to come along to the BMC/BL Show and help to celebrate this milestone. If you worked in the factory, or in the dealer network – selling or servicing Maestros, the club wants you to join the celebrations.

On the day, there will be the following attractions:

  • Prizes for vehicles in various categories
  • Display of period Austin Rover clothes, accessories and advertising material
  • ‘Dealers and customers wall’
  • Messages/stories from owners and their cars outside of Europe
  • Stands from Sponsors and Traders/auto jumble
  • Racing and Rally cars
  • Scalextric ‘Maestro Challenge’
  • Commemorative mugs, T-shirts and car stickers for sale
  • Commemorative booklet of the day

Andrew added: ‘We are expecting vehicles from all parts of the UK and further afield. So far, we have over 70 Maestros signed up to attend. This will be the largest gathering of Maestros since the 1980s when they were coming off the Austin Rover assembly lines at Cowley and arriving in dealerships across Britain.’

To register your interest in bringing a Maestro to the show, please contact the Maestro & Montego Owners Club at maestro40@maestro.org.uk. You can also keep abreast of how the event is shaping up on its dedicated Facebook group.

Keith Adams

9 Comments

  1. My Auntie had a dealer special Maestro; a “Genoa ‘90”. This was to mark the 1990 football World Cup. It was purchased new in, well, 1990. It came from a dealer in the Glasgow area, and was to mark Scotland’s participation in the World Cup (I think their first game was played in Genoa). White, with white wheel trims (AR logoed one’s, rather than generic), aftermarket sunroof, and tricilore pinstriping at door handle level, with small “Genoa ‘90” scripts within a break in the pin striping in the rear wings. 1.3, 4 speed. I remember it having a decent stereo, with the yellow and orange Philips stickers (Philips keycode?) on the bottom of the front door windows. Quite a nice runaround, actually. The decals were fairly subtle.

  2. My old Dad had a white MG Maestro 1600
    Good fun as a lad to drive about in and a big upgrade from an Allegro 1100

  3. Our local ARG dealer Streamline in South Shields did a dealer special limited edition Montego called the “Diplomat”. I think it was based on a 1.6L and had striped coachlines etc and a hand painted Diplomat name on the bonnet. Apparently painted by a pro sign writer. looked good as I remember…

  4. I’ve done a bit of asking about in the family, and the consensus is that the “Genoa ‘90” Maestro would almost certainly have been bought from Peat Road Motors in Giffnock. Hopefully that’s some use?

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